Greetings from Hualien

I have finally made it out on the road again.
After my aborted effort to go to Alishan, I spent a day at Aaron's and wandered around his area a bit. Did a bit of shopping in a Fields type of store. It was fun.
Later that day I met Aaron and we went and looked at his new apartment. It's a small place, but I think for him it will be big enough. He won't have roommates any more, and he's happy about that.
I took the train to Hualien on Wednesday. It was a 5 1/2 hour train ride, but the views were spectacular. Very nice ride.
I am staying at a hostel here in a dorm room. I didn't want to stay in dorm rooms because I just wasn't comfortable with all that "sharing". But, I had no choice and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I met a lovely girl from Germany who had been working in the hospital in Tainan for 4 weeks, and is now travelling around for 3 weeks.
I also met another lady (more my age), Chan, who is from Malaysia. Her and I went to Taroko Gorge together on the Thursday. We caught a but at 0630 hrs (I know what you're thinking!) and took the bus up, with the plan to walk down.
Even though Nora, the German girl, had said that we have to walk down via the highway I wasn't really quite prepared for what that entailed. The road is very narrow, very curvy and very busy with buses.
We aborted our efforts of walking when we were more than half way down and flagged down a bus. I thought it was the city bus, but it was a tour bus. He allowed us to carry on for the rest of the tour with him for only NT$100 ($3). It was good and we got to see things that we probably wouldn't have been able to see on the city bus.
The Gorge is something to see. It is all marble and is quite beautiful. It is considered a National Treasure here. The views as we were walking down were spectacular. Worth a look, that's for sure.
Yesterday, Friday, I rented a scooter and went for a 7 hour ride. I drove down the inland highway through the mountains and valleys, etc, then crossed over and took the coast highway back up. It was a long trip but I thoroughly enjoyed the views and the sites. It took me longer than it could have because I stopped alot to take pictures.
There were a few sites that were recommended to me to see, but I was concerned about being on the highway after dark, so I decided to just drive, drive, drive. Awesome.
At one place, the Baci Lookout (the highest spot on the highway) there was a little pullout with a shop selling tea, coffee, cold drinks and toast. I had some toast and cold green tea. It was good and hit the spot. I talked to the gal that was running the place and told her that I was travelling alone.
When I was leaving, she came running out and gave me a gift of her business card and some local dried fruit. She said that she knew how difficult it was to travel around by yourself and wanted to give these things to me. I thought that was so kind.
Oh yeah, on Thursday night, Nora, three people from Singapore, and I went to the shore and bought fireworks. Fun, fun, fun! I LOVE fireworks. They were quite awesome and unlike things we can get in Canada. You just buy them at the beach, and walk out and light them. Very cool.
People (mostly girls, I think) also wrote on these paper balloons and then lit the fire spot in it and sent those into the sky....much like hot air balloons. On our way home, we saw seven of these things floating in the sky. It was quite pretty.
Today Aaron is joining me. We are going to rent scooters and drive down the coast to go to the one beach that is okay for swimming. I don't really know why the other beaches are not okay. They say the water is too rough, but I am also told that the Taiwanese people do not swim, so it makes me wonder if it would be okay for a swimmer from Canada or not? In any case, I'm not willing to try it. We'll head down to the swimming beach.
Tomorrow, we'll get up early and take the scooters up to the Gorge. Then, we can meander down and stop and take all the pictures we want. Then, it's back to Aaron's for a day or so. What I'll do after that, I don't know.
On Thursday, I walked over 22kms and today my legs and knees are quite sore. They were sore yesterday which is why I went out on the scooter. So at the end of yesterday, I had sore calves, sore knees and a sore butt. And, I got a sunburn on my legs. At least I didn't have a headache! lol
The food here is fine, but not spectacular.
That's it for this post. The people continue to be kind, it's really hot and I'm having a good time.